As you are likely aware Internet Society North America Bureau Director Paul Brigner’s previous job was CTO to the MPAA. Since “switching sides” in March 2012 he has strongly pursued a program of increasing communication and engagement between the Internet community and big content, including recruiting the MPAA, the RIAA, and Disney as organizational members. This week he has led a foray by ISOC staff to visit major Hollywood studios – a listening tour. Accompanying him were Leslie Daigle (ISOC’s CTO), Markus Kummer (VP of Public Policy), and Konstantinos Komaitis (Policy Advisor). Today, September 27 2012, the group reported to the North America Chapter leaders via Google Hangout. Video is here or below.

The NY Tech Meetup is organizing an Emergency Meetup to protest the proposed SOPA/PIPA Internet censorship legislation. The protest will take the form of a rally outside the offices of Senators Schumer and Gillibrand on Jan 18 2012, which will also be a day of national protest including the blackout of many sites. The rally will immediately follow the live webcast of a related Senate Oversight Hearing at which Brad Burnham of Union Square Ventures will speak. (postponed)

I say to New York’s tech community: we have heard you. Senator Reid’s decision to pull a vote on PIPA from the Senate calendar is the right one and will allow Congress to work with stakeholders to craft a better solution that protects against piracy and doesn’t do anything to damage our dynamic tech community or freedom of expression on the Internet. I am hopeful that both sides of this debate will come together to find a consensus solution that protects American jobs threatened by illegal piracy and at the same time encourages the growth of New York’s vibrant and growing technology and Internet communities.

Whether passing the 9/11 Health Bill, repealing DADT, or my call to action for women, I have always urged New Yorkers to make their voices heard. There has been an outpouring of democracy in action over the last several weeks on PIPA & SOPA. While many of my colleagues and I have worked hard to address concerns with the current bill, it is clear this proposal will not create consensus on how to crack down on the real problem of online theft that threatens tens of thousands of New York jobs in a balanced way that ensures our tech companies will continue to flourish. It is time for Congress to take a step back and start over with both sides bringing their solutions to the table to find common ground towards solving this problem. New talks between stakeholders — media companies, music and film companies, Silicon Valley and Silicon Alley here in New York is a critically needed step forward. Make no mistake, we must act to protect the theft of intellectual property that costs our economy billions in revenue — but we must get it right without unintended consequences that could stifle the internet.

That’s the dirty secret behind all that PIPA/SOPA lawmaking – as it stands now, as long as file sharing services refrain from *publishing* the material (as opposed to merely storing it and allowing the rightful owner(s) to download it – but without any obligation to actually verify that the posession of ownership rights) and have a procedure for dealing with takedowns they are in the clear, legally.

This places the burden of finding infringing content and proving infringement to the copyright holders. They cannot efficiently do that, and so they want to off-load that burden to the user content hosters.

The less charitable interpretation is that PIPA/SOPA is a massive shakedown attempt by Hollywood; by basically threatening to shut down social networks and user-generated content hosters they’ll be able to hold hostage the business of some very wealthy companies. If the law passes, these large companies will have to come to terms with Hollywood and music industry by means of purchasing blanket licenses (it is impossible to monitor all user content for copyright violations), resulting in transfer of billions of dollars from high-tech to Hollywood.

The worst part is that companies like Google and Facebook may end up seeing PIPA/SOPA or future bills of the same nature as beneficial to them – after all, they already have enough money to pay copyright extortionists off, but their upstart competitors won’t be able to get into the field at all. Paying a portion of their income in exchange for exclusion of future competition may be looked at as a good bargain, without negative P.R. normally associated with explicit attempts to cartelize.

Policies mandating DNS filtering undermine the open architecture of the Internet and raise human rights and freedom of expression concerns

[Washington, D.C. and Geneva, Switzerland – 12 December 2011] – The Internet Society Board of Trustees has expressed concern with a number of U.S. legislative proposals that would mandate DNS blocking and filtering by ISPs to protect the interests of copyright holders. While the Internet Society agrees that combating illicit online activity is an important public policy objective, these critical issues must be addressed in ways that do not undermine the viability of the Internet as a platform for innovation across all industries by compromising its global architecture. The Internet Society Board of Trustees does not believe that the Protect-IP Act (PIPA) and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) are consistent with these basic principles.

Specifically, the Internet Society is concerned with provisions in both bills regarding Domain Name System (DNS) filtering. DNS filtering is often proposed as a way to block illegal content consumption by end users. Yet policies to mandate DNS filtering will be ineffective for that purpose and will interfere with cross-border data flows and services undermining innovation and social development across the globe.(More …)

On December 7 2011 the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School hosted a panel discussion – What’s Wrong With SOPA? – on the evils of the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) currently before Congress.

The Internet Society has noted with concern a number of U.S. legislative proposals that would mandate DNS blocking and filtering by ISPs in order to protect the interests of copyright holders. We agree with proponents of the Protect-IP Act (PIPA) and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) that combating illegal online activities is a very important public policy objective. However, policies that are enacted to achieve this goal must not undermine the viability of the Internet as a globally reachable platform. After close examination and consultation with the Internet community, we do not believe that the current U.S. legislative proposals are consistent with these basic principles.

In particular, we are concerned with provisions in both laws regarding DNS filtering. DNS filtering is often proposed as a way to block illegal content consumption by end users. Yet policies to mandate DNS filtering have not proven to be effective – these approaches interfere with cross-border data flows and services undermining innovation and social development across the globe. In addition, DNS blocking raises significant concerns with respect to human rights and freedom of expression and may curtail fundamental international principles of rule of law and due process.

The United States has an important leadership role when it comes to online Internet freedoms and should show the way when it comes to balancing local responsibilities and global impact, especially with respect to Internet policy.

In short, the negative impact of DNS filtering far outweighs any short-term, narrow, legal, and commercial benefits. The Internet Society believes that sustained, global collaboration amongst all parties is needed to find ways that protect the global architecture of the Internet while combating illegal online activities. We must all work to support the principles of innovation and freedom of expression upon which the Internet was founded.